We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with preview copies of these models for review purposes.
Better late than never.
Blood Hags are the kinda-not-quite replacement for the venerable and much maligned Witch Aelf/Sisters of Slaughter kit, combining elements of both in dramatic style. It's a kit that feels very modern, but has a style that maintains links with that more old school Daughters of Khaine aesthetic. They're gorgeous models that I adore, but also have quite a few reservations about.
Blood Hags. Credit: Matthew 'chimp' Ward
Let's start with the basics - there's no pictures of sprue or build here as there's basically nothing to say. The kit is extremely lean. After building the unit, the only unused piece left on the sprue was a single alternate arm so that the standard bearer can be built not as a standard bearer. From a perspective of not ditching loads of unused plastic, this is good, from the perspective of building the kit to use in the game Warhammer Age of Sigmar it's not so good.
Blood Hags. Credit: Matthew 'chimp' Ward
This is the immediate problem with the kit: there's effectively no alternate anything and it doesn't quite mesh with what the models want to be doing in-game. It feels a bit like a repurposed Warcry unit from that perspective. Perhaps that's what it originally was meant to be. The obvious issue here is that you're forced to always build the champion for a unit that in-game can be reinforced and has a limit of one champion (in fact, amusingly, you can take one standard per 10, so that alt-build doesn't help gameplay).
Blood Hags. Credit: Matthew 'chimp' Ward
Purely personally, I also don't love the masked heads and find the lack of options here really disappointing. One thing I wanted to do with this as a little painting project was try out a bunch of different skin tones and bust out a headband magnifier I'd gotten as a birthday gift but hadn't used. The faces that are present in the kit are really well sculpted, expressive and fun to paint. I didn't find the masks particularly interested, but that's obviously a ymmv issue, I do think it would have made the kit a
lot more interesting and usable to have had enough heads to do all masked or all bare.
More good faces place Games Workshop
From a perspective of building and painting they're enjoyable. There's a few bits of the build I found quite fiddly, a couple of legs didn't want to connect neatly to the body in the way you'd expect. They were a joy to paint though, they buck the more recent AoS trend of going over the top on extra bits and loads of different textures, and that made batching them quite smooth. They're really just hair, skin, bodysuit, armour, weapons and straps. I approached the unit as it for army painting and it ended up going pretty smoothly, I spent more time on the skin, cloth and bases and let metallics and washes handle the rest. Contrast is a godsend for the bodysuit. All-in-all, a kit that Daughters players should be relatively happy with, but there's a few downsides holding it back from the classic status that minis with this quality posing could have had.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.
Thank you for being a friend.
This website uses cookies. Learn more.
Goonhammer Reviews: Daughters of Kaine Blood Hags
